More than 20 Knesset members and 60 Israeli civil society organizations including NIF have called on Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to overturn Finance Minister Israel Katz’s decision to freeze assistance to NGOs helping the country’s most needy.

Katz has halted the funding because he is concerned that government money is being used to assist asylum seekers and refugees, which, according to him, would be “against government values.” In his attack on assistance for asylum seekers and refugees, Katz has halted the a broad range of social service funding which also provided assistance to Holocaust survivors, victims of rape and sexual assault, and the homeless population, among others.

These welfare recipients including refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and other “non-Jewish foreigners” are all sectors of Israeli society that NIF is proud to support and will continue to support during the COVID-19 crisis.